Altus Dam and a major portion of the reservoir storage system, including relocation work on highways and the main canal from the dam to the project boundary, were completed. Water will be delivered to a part of the project in the fiscal year 1946.

Construction of the Tucumcari project was continued and water for the first 7,000-acre unit of project lands is scheduled for delivery early in the next fiscal year. Plans were also being made to rush construction of a 64-mile transmission line from Las Cruces to Alamogordo, New Mexico, to supply power for the Alamogordo Army Air Field and the United States Army's Ordnance proving grounds at White Sands.

Comprehensive reports on basin-wide investigations of the Rio Grande, Nueces, Guadalupe, and Colorado Rivers were completed, and the tentative drafts submitted to the Commissioner. Investigations in the Red and Arkansas River Basins were approximately 75 percent completed. Reports for the Canton and Middle Rio Grande Valley projects were in final stages of preparation, and surveys were initiated on the San Juan-Chama diversion. A power market survey in the Alamogordo, New Mexico, area was completed, two landuse programs were developed for the projects under construction, and a review was made of the land classification surveys for both projects. Approximately 600 acres were leveled on the Altus project and several thousand acres were cleared and leveled on the Tucumcari project. A demonstration farm was initiated on the Altus project. The war has affected Bureau operations in many ways. Construction was limited to those projects considered essential under either the war food or war power program and even on such projects was carried on under severe handicaps. The increased cost of labor and materials on the two projects under construction is estimated at nearly $11,000,000. The increased cost of project planning surveys, for salaries and wages alone, is estimated in excess of $100,000.Serious losses, though not always tangible, were sustained on crop lands under the drive of all-out production for war. Farmers, in many instances, abandoned normal crop rotation plans in order to meet food goals, increased acreages of soil-depleting crops, were unable to carry out usual fertilizer programs because of shortages in materials, equipment, and manpower. It is estimated that crop production on the two projects under construction would have increased by $7,000,000 had it not been for the war, and this does not include the value of livestock, poultry, and garden truck that would have been produced had the projects been completed and made productive. Also, more than a million acre-feet of water has spilled over Conchas Dam since December 1941, unused for irrigation because construction of the canal system on the Tucumcari project had to be deferred.

With the end of the war, these projects will be fully developed and many more will be completed as soon as funds, manpower, and materials are obtainable. Altogether, there are 53 projects included in the Bureau's inventory for postwar construction in region 5, which includes all of Texas and Oklahoma, most of New Mexico, the southern half of Kansas and a small area in south-central Colorado. Completion of these projects will make 11,500 irrigated farms available for settlement, irrigate 1,269,000 acres of new land, provide additional water for 991,000 acres inadequately irrigated, and make available tremendous quantities of low-cost hydroelectric power for agricultural use and industrial expansion.

REGION 6

National attention was focused during the year on the Great Plains area of the Missouri River Basin as the Bureau of Reclamation went forward with plans for undertaking after the war the largest and most ambitious development program in the 43-year history of the agency. The Congress gave its endorsement to that program by adoption of the Flood Control Act of 1944 which approved the coordinated plan of the Bureau and the Corps of Engineers, War Department, to put the Missouri and its tributaries to work in expanding the agricultural and industrial economy of a region embracing onesixth the continental area of the United States.

The act authorized 29 projects for construction by the Bureau and authorized an appropriation of $200,000,000 to each of the agencies for carrying out the initial phases of the program. The Bureau continued its engineering and economic investigations which have been in progress for the past several years and which culminated last year in the presentation to the Congress of a report (S. Doc. 191, 78th Cong., 2d sess.) setting forth a comprehensive program for resource development in the basin. It is contemplated that this investigation work and the preparation of detailed plans and specifications will be greatly expanded within the next few months with a view to having several projects ready for starting construction by the beginning of the next fiscal year.

To more effectively coordinate its work, the Bureau in September 1944 established a regional office at Billings, Montana, for the area made up of the States of North and South Dakota, most of Montana, and the northern part of Wyoming. This office works closely with the region 7 office at Denver, which serves the remainder of the area drained by the Missouri River and its tributaries.

Bureau-operated projects in region 6 continued their record production of food and fiber crops in helping to meet increased war demands. A total of 342,623 acres were irrigated on the eight operating projects in the region and the crops produced had a gross value of more than

$14,000,000. This is equivalent to more than 30 percent of the total investment which the government has made in the construction of these projects.

Among the major contributions to the food supply of the Nation. were 3,346,000 bushels of cereal grains, 239,000 bushels of hay, flax, pea, and vegetable seeds, 165,000 tons of hay, 1,300,000 bushels of beans, potatoes, and other truck, and 355,000 tons of sugar beets. The inventory value of all livestock on the farms of the eight projects at the close of 1944 was $17,200,000.

Under the war food program, 14,400 acres have been brought under irrigation on the Buford-Trenton project near Williston, N. Dak., works have been almost completed for 8,000 acres in the Second Division of the Buffalo Rapids project, near Terry, Mont. Though restricted by War Production Board orders and labor shortages construction work was also in progress on the Deerfield Reservoir near Rapid City, S. Dak., a project to furnish supplemental water for irrigated lands in Rapid Valley and a municipal supply for Rapid City. Civilian Public Service camps were furnishing labor on both the Rapid Valley and Buffalo Rapids No. 2 projects.

A contract for the construction of works to irrigate 800 acres on the Intake project near Savage, Mont., was awarded and bids had been received for the Big Flat project of 900 acres near Missoula, Mont. Advertisements for bids on the 1,600-acre Dodson project, near Malta, Mont., were issued but bids had not been opened at the close of the year.

In the power field three operating plants produced a total of 141,783,000 kilowatt-hours, more than 84,000,000 of which were produced at the Fort Peck plant operated by the Corps of Engineers, and marketed through the Bureau of Reclamation.

A 115,000-kilovolt transmission line to carry energy from Fort Peck to Glendive, Mont., was under construction.

At the end of the year there were 43 regional employees in the office at Billings, Mont., and 367 employees in the field working on planning, operation and maintenance, construction and power operation.

REGION 7

With large-scale construction halted or retarded because of the war, major emphasis of the Bureau in this region was placed on continuing high level production of food and electric power and in laying the groundwork for carrying out coordinated plans for Missouri Basin development and completion of trans-mountain diversion projects. Region 7 was established 3 months after the start of the fiscal year as the newest subdivision in the Bureau's program of decentralization, and includes the State of Nebraska, northern half of Kansas, northeastern Wyoming, and western Colorado.

More than $16,000,000 worth of war-vital crops were produced on the North Platte project (Wyoming-Nebraska), with a full water supply provided for 209,668 acres and a supplemental supply for 96,803 acres. Expanded war industries in the Rocky Mountain area made increased demands for electric power, and four Bureau-operated plants generated 185,000,000 kilowatt-hours of energy, distributed over some 900 miles of transmission lines to industry, cities, and farms.

Construction efforts were concentrated on the Colorado-Big Thompson transmountain water diversion project in northern Colorado and on the Mirage Flats irrigation project in northwestern Nebraska. Work proceeded, despite delays due to manpower and material shortages, on the lining of the 13-mile Alva B. Adams Tunnel beneath the Continental Divide, and on Shadow Mountain Dam near Grand Lake, key features of the Colorado-Big Thompson project. Completion of the project will provide for the diversion of 310,000 acre-feet of surplus water annually from the western slope of the Rockies, through the Alva B. Adams Tunnel, for supplemental irrigation of 615,000 acres on the eastern slope and the generation of about 600,000,000 kilowatt-hours of electric energy annually. Delivery of 90,000 acre-feet of water annually is scheduled to start in the spring of 1946. Full diversion is expected to increase crop values on the eastern slope by approximately 5 million dollars annually. On the Mirage Flats project in Nebraska, construction of Box Butte Dam on the Niobrara River was about 90 percent complete and work on the irrigation canals and laterals was in an advanced stage. The dam will store water for irrigating 13,000 acres of new land to be opened for settlement by veterans and others.

Investigations were nearly complete on two other major projects proposed for postwar construction in region 7-the Gunnison-Arkansas transmountain diversion project and the Blue River-South Platte project, both in Colorado. With Missouri River waters originating in or flowing through all four states in which it functions, region 7 is also taking an active part in the plans and program for coordinated development of the Missouri Basin.

U. S. RECLAMATION INVESTMENT NEAR BILLION

At the end of the 1945 fiscal year the total investment of the Federal Government in projects constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation amounted to $952,893,542, an increase of $31,122,922 over the previous year.

During its 43 years of operation, accretions to the Reclamation fund have totaled $228,106,850 (see table 4). These have come from the sale of public lands, proceeds from the Oil Leasing Act, from Federal water power licenses, potassium royalties, and rentals

and receipts from naval petroleum reserves from 1920 to 1930 under the act of May 9, 1938. Collections-construction and operation and maintenance repayments, water rentals, power revenues, etc.-have totaled $173,263,626.

Disbursements during that period have totaled $358,689,871, leaving a balance in the fund on June 30, 1945, of $42,680,606. Repayments of construction charges to the Reclamation fund during the fiscal year 1945 totaled $3,611,000. Operation and maintenance collections totaled $1,513,000, of which $442,000 accrued to the Reclamation fund. Receipts from water rentals, power sales, and other sources aggregated $9,462,000.

TABLE 4.-Accretions to Reclamation fund by States